One of the hardest things for engaged citizens is knowing how to make a real contribution to the broad process of improving a community. The road in for many is through a passionate commitment to particular values, which leads to passionate advocacy for or opposition to some development or policy direction. In that case the issues are well-formed and sometimes positions are nearly frozen at the outset.
People who love the places where they live, work, and play, and who want to be involved in shaping the future of those places, are often marginalized. Public participation in decision-making is often mostly a matter of “public hearings,” which however well-intentioned give little opportunity for understanding and influencing the course of things. People can be intimidated by the “professionalism” of planners and developers, who may use tools that seem to distort reality but that many do not feel qualified to criticize.
Others find themselves called on to attend public hearings during some kind of planning process—and are confused about just what their role should be. It may seem at times as if the process of public participation is a meaningless ritual, done so that it can be said to have been done, without much opportunity for real influence. If a community is developing a master plan or a new zoning ordinance, it may be that public input is expressed in general terms, and then decisions are made in highly particular contexts—by which time the public may have left things more or less to the experts.
But if the people of a community set out to understand what it is that they love about the place where they live, what qualities of the landscape are most important to them, what it is in the culture that if lost would impoverish their lives, what buildings or styles are too important to lose, they would come to planning with an entirely different approach. The collective wisdom about the deep character of any place resides in its people: in their values, their affections, their experiences, their memories. Understanding the personality of a place empowers people to help shape the future of that place.